March 26, 2011

Okay, you guys put up with the angry political rant, so I figure I owe you a normal catch-up post.

This year, I set myself a goal to lose 20 lbs. and be generally healthier (eat right, exercise more, get a consistent sleep schedule, etc). See this picture of a 12 pound weight? This is how much weight I’ve lost so far. I work out most days of the week, either running or with free weights. For diet, I’ve been using a great program called Lose It to count calories. I feel great! At my current pace, I will hit 20 lbs. lost around graduation, maybe a little sooner.

In other news, school is going well. Two of my three classes had midterms. In one, I got a solid B and I’m setting myself up well for the final. I haven’t received a grade yet in the other. I need to play a bit of catch-up in the third class – I set it aside for a few weeks in order to get ready for the midterms in the other two.

Next week is student service week. I will be doing a bit of volunteer work, though I haven’t made up my mind where just yet. Next weekend is a little mad cap adventure called the Warrior Dash. And that night, Chris and I may be going to a comic book store down in Hollywood to hear a live podcast of The Nerdist.

In short – 2011 has been pretty good to me so far, and I hope all of you are doing equally well.

March 21, 2011

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that, since the start of 2011 (not even 90 days ago, can you believe it?), the Republican party has been perpetrating one of the most vicious attacks on the rights and heath of women in my lifetime. Republicans in the US House of Representatives have passed or attempted to pass the following bills:

Defund the Title X Family Planning Program. Title X does NOT provide money for abortions. However, they do give some funding to Planned Parenthood’s NON-abortions services, such as providing birth control and disease testing. Again, getting rid of this program seems like it will cause MORE abortions – horrible, dangerous, unsafe abortions without medical supervision – because MORE women will become pregnant without available contraception.

Defining as “government funded” any abortion which is paid for with a Health Savings Account. Even though a woman earned that money with her own salary, an HSA is tax deductible. Republicans are arguing that this makes an abortion paid for with this money government funded. You know what this leads to? Needing the IRS to police abortions via tax forms. I thought the point of an HSA was let people make their own health care decisions without government interference?

Stop trying to regulate my woman bits because you don’t like something that is as old as pregnancy itself and that women undertake even when it is illegal. You want fewer abortions to happen? Educate people about the consequences of sex instead of just telling them not to have any. Make contraception widely available so people don’t get pregnant in the first place! The way you’re going about it now just creates a lot of collateral damage in the form of poor women – and men.